


Like Father, Like Son

by unfolded73



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Cobra - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Step-parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 12:16:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: Spoilery for S7 if you consider a hair style to be spoilery. Otherwise, there is nothing in this fic that references S7.





	Like Father, Like Son

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery for S7 if you consider a hair style to be spoilery. Otherwise, there is nothing in this fic that references S7.

“Somebody needs to teach Henry to shave,” Emma commented as she scraped the leftovers from dinner into a plastic container.

Killian glanced up from the table, where he was lingering with a book and a glass of rum. “What was that, love?”

She put the container in the refrigerator. “Henry, he’s getting these…” She pointed to her own upper lip. “Stupid wispy little beginnings of a mustache, and it has got to go. Maybe I’ll ask Dad if he can teach him.” And then she instantly regretted saying that, as Killian’s face morphed into something that reminded her of a kicked puppy.

“I can teach him to shave, Swan,” he grumbled.

Emma held her hands up. “I’m not saying you’re not capable, it’s just that you use that terrifying straight razor. You can’t teach Henry to use a straight razor; he’ll kill himself.”

He continued to look affronted. “First of all, I _could_ teach him to use a straight razor. I’ve taught the boy to wield a bloody sword, and he’s a natural. But I’ve availed myself of this realm’s safety razors before, and I could certainly teach him to use one of those if you prefer.”

“Yeah, I do prefer,” she said. “Okay, fair enough. But do it soon, because I can’t look at his face like that much longer.”

~*~

Henry flipped open the blade of Killian’s straight razor and held it up. _“At last my arm is complete again!”_ he shouted at the mirror. They were in the en-suite bathroom that was attached to his mom’s and Killian’s bedroom, an area of the house that Henry generally kept his distance from. He wasn’t sure he’d been in here even once since the first time he’d toured the house.

“What in seven hells?” Killian said, giving him a baffled look.

“Sweeney Todd? The demon barber of Fleet Street? It’s a musical. Never mind.” He turned to Killian. “I want to learn to shave with _this_.”

“Sorry, lad, your mother forbade it.” Killian handed him the razor with its ridiculously expensive disposable blades that Emma had bought at the drugstore. “These are for you.”

Henry rolled his eyes, setting his stepfather’s razor down. “Don’t we need shaving cream or something?”

“You mean that disgusting stuff that comes in a pressurized can? No no no.” Killian pulled a mug and brush down off of a shelf and wet the brush in the sink. “Shaving soap is what you want.” He made several quick circles of the brush in the mug, lathering it up. “Wet your face first to soften up the hairs.” Once Henry had done as asked, Killian handed over the brush.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Henry stretched his upper lip over his teeth and gingerly dabbed at it with the brush. “Who taught you to shave?” he asked as he continued to cover his face with suds, before setting the brush down and brandishing the razor. “Liam?”

“Aye. Now shave in the direction your hair grows, not against it. So on your upper lip, that’s down toward your mouth.”

“Like you know anything about shaving your upper lip anyway,” Henry said as he followed Killian’s direction.

“As a cadet in the Royal Navy, I was required to be clean-shaven,” Killian said mildly.

“Yeah, like two hundred years ago.”

“Ah, but I have an excellent memory.” He watched Henry drawing the razor carefully over his upper lip in the mirror. “But before that, when Liam taught me to shave, we had only a small broken off piece of a mirror to share between us. He held it up for me, and I did my best not to cut myself. Stretch the skin of your cheek up, like this,” Killian said, demonstrating with his hook, “and you’ll get a closer shave.”

“I don’t really have any hair here anyway,” Henry said, but he watched Killian closely and matched what he did. “So did you cut yourself?”

“Oh yes, a few times.”

“That’s not how you got that scar on your cheek though, right? You don’t shave that part of your face.” Henry scraped the razor down his cheek slowly, glancing quickly at Killian’s reflection before looking back at this own.

Killian chuckled. “No, I didn’t get this scar from shaving. I usually just tell people I scratched my face with the wrong hand.” He waved his hook in the air.

“You didn’t?”

“No.” He cleared his throat. “Captain Silver, the captain of the ship Liam and I were indentured on, used to hit us – well, me in particular – when he thought we weren’t moving fast enough. One of the times he punched me in the face, he had a ring on that laid my cheek open.”

Henry let his hand drop. “How old were you?”

Killian looked down at the floor. “Twelve, I believe.”

Henry stared at him. He knew that Liam and Killian had tough childhoods, abandoned by their father to be indentured to a ship when they were young, but he didn’t think he’d really begun to understand how tough it had been until now. “That sucks,” he said.

Killian gave him a half-smile. “Aye.”

Henry pointed his chin at the sky. “How do I do my neck?”

“Here, it’s easier to demonstrate.” Killian lathered up the shaving brush and tilted his own head back. Before he covered his neck with soap, Henry caught a glimpse of another scar, one he didn’t have to ask about. He’d been there when the cut from Excalibur had reopened, blood spurting out between Killian’s fingers as he held his hand to the wound. Perhaps Zeus had restored his stepfather to life, but a mark of that mortal wound still remained. Henry wondered if he thought about it much.

When they finished shaving, Killian opened the medicine cabinet to share some of his aftershave with Henry.

“You’ve got a lot of stuff in there,” Henry said, taking a peek at the array of bottles and jars. There was a separate cabinet that he presumed held his mother’s things, not to mention the fact that half of the vanity counter was covered with stuff that appeared to be Emma’s.

Killian looked at the shelves and his cheeks reddened. “I may have gotten a bit carried away with the array of hair products one can purchase in this realm.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Henry blew at the bangs that covered most of his forehead. His hair looked the same as it had when he was ten years old, and lately he despised it.

His stepfather gave him an appraising look, and took out one of the jars.

~*~

Emma slid into the booth at Granny’s across from Regina and her mother, slightly out of breath from her dash from the car. “Okay, when Henry walks in, don’t say anything.”

“About what?” Regina asked.

“About–” she started to say, but was interrupted by the door to the diner opening again to admit her husband and son. Both of them in leather jackets, both of them with similarly styled hair, parted in the same place, swept back off of their foreheads in exactly the same way.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Regina grumbled.

“I said don’t say anything,” Emma whispered through clenched teeth. Snow covered her mouth with a napkin, trying her best to suppress an outburst of laughter.

“Hey, Mom,” Henry said to Regina, sitting down in the booth next to Emma while Killian went to get a chair for himself. “What’s up?”

Regina was still looking back and forth between Killian and Henry with an eyebrow raised. “Nothing’s… up. What’s up with you?”

“Killian taught me to shave,” he said.

“Looks good,” Emma said. She leaned over, taking his chin in her hand and giving her son a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Oh, and you smell like Killian’s aftershave, that is… really disturbing. I’ll take you shopping to get some of your own stuff, kid.”

“Let’s just make sure there’s no eyeliner purchased on that shopping trip, shall we?” Regina said. “Or leather pants.”

Killian frowned at her. “What’s wrong with leather pants?”


End file.
